


Protect and Serve

by Person_with_a_cool_name



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Cardassian Culture, Cardassian History, Character Study, Freedom, Gen, Introspection, The State
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 07:04:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13631163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Person_with_a_cool_name/pseuds/Person_with_a_cool_name
Summary: Cardassia was free, once.Until it wasn’t.





	Protect and Serve

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a challenge:  
> You put all of your music on shuffle and simply write. If a song stops, so do you.

Cardassia, Garak knew, had once been frivolously free, nearly as much as the federation worlds.

But then, things changed for the Cardassians.  
They were being controlled. Sneakily, stealthily, it became more and more.

At first, it had still been okay to talk about anything, critique anything, as long as you weren’t working as an official of any sort.

Garak only knew such freedoms from the whispered talks in his youth, those of old people who had nothing left to loose 

Shortly afterwards, the state radicalised itself.  
People who thought the wrong was where fired, got worse grades, got less money.

Their talks turned private. They didn’t stop, because the Cardassians had their families to trust to.

Until they didn’t.  
Until family members, influenced by propaganda and fear - yes, fear! - ratted each other out.

People simply went missing.  
Or we’re publicly executed, just to set a sign.

This was the world Garak was born into, was raised to protect and love.

And even though it was a tainted love, it took a cold and lonely exile to ask himself if maybe Cardassia should have protected him, too.


End file.
